Parish Pastoral Letter Number 2, Sunday, 22^nd November, 2009
            St.  Patrick’s Parish, Esker/Dodsboro/Adamstown 

Dublin’s Catholic archdiocese will soon have barely enough priests to serve its 199 parishes, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has said. “We have 46 priests over 80 and only two less than 35 years of age.  In a very short time we will just have the bare number of priests required to have one active priest for each of our 199 parishes” he said in Dublin’s pro-cathedral at the weekend. Archbishop Diarmuid Martin’s homily on the Feast of St. Laurence O’Toole (principal patron of the Archdiocese of which he was Archbishop from 1162 until 1180) said that “the future will require different structures and different planning.  Parishes will have to work more closely with each other and share facilities.  The number of Masses will have to be rationalised.  Some of these changes will cause pain”.   Such changes will require “renewal and conversion on the part of all.  Change in the church is never just about new structures”, he said 

                                                Weekend Masses in Lucan Parishes